Fun with phrases: "high-voltage thriller"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Mar 20 01:15:23 UTC 2013


As close as you can get without winning the cigar:

1914 _San Jose Mercury Herald_ (July 7) 5: The Redmond Company Presents
"Madame X" A Tense Melodrama of the High Voltage, "Thriller" Variety.

But it's still the earliest fig. ex. of "high-voltage."

JL

On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Fun with phrases: "high-voltage thriller"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1927 _Lima [O.] News_ (Feb. 28) [unp.] (NewspArch]: This game should be the
> high-voltage thriller of a season that has been replete with thrills.
>
> Then nothing till 1939, 1948, 1953, a couple more in the '50s, and
> regularly after 1980.
>
> BTW...OED has no entry for _high-voltage_.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list